


inkpot blot

by gayforroxane



Series: under sea and storm, through bullets and blood [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Jughead Jones, M/M, Soulmate AU, b and v fit in here too, guess what it's two am AGAIN, meet cute, non-binary valerie brown, police officer Archie, tattooed boys?, veteran Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 17:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10576431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayforroxane/pseuds/gayforroxane
Summary: you know that one tumblr prompt about being reaching eighteen and not continuing to age until they met their soulmate?yeah, exactlyand for jughead jones, a hundred and fourteen years is starting to feel like a little much





	

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to usagi (angeburger) for the beta, love you man

He scuffs his converse on the concrete, scratches at his hair beneath the Whoopee cap on his head. The streets are lined with rotting trees whose leaves are scattered around their trunks. An old man murmurs to himself at the bus stop, picking at his nail beds with dirt-ridden hands.

His keys have worn a hole in the left pocket of his jeans. He holds them in his mouth as he searches for the one to his apartment building. They taste metallic against his tongue and teeth. It doesn't change when he reaches the scratched white door with the scratched silver knob on the fourth floor, and searches anew.

He shakes his wrist until the key slips into the lock, twists to release it.

The flat is old, dingy. Despite his best efforts the white counters are slightly yellowed and the white walls crave a new coat of paint, but the floors are hardwood, the windows are big, and the kitchen comes with a bottle opener. Down the hallway there's a closet-turned-office (a glorified hole-in-the-wall), two bedrooms (one covered in posters from the first Chaplin movie he ever saw, the first release of the original Star Wars series), and a bathroom (claw-foot tub, yellowing counters, and a print done by his sister in nineteen-thirty-seven, only three years before she died).

He stocks the groceries into the cupboards and the rattling fridge. A beer waits for him on the counter, and he pops it on the bottle opener under the lip of the counter. He leans back with a sigh, downing a quarter of it. His fingers twitch for a cig, but the man at the corner store isn’t the one who knows that he isn’t a teenager, no matter what he looks like.

His I.D. proves that he was born in nineteen-oh-three, but he can’t grow a beard, his eyes are big and wide and blue, and his arms and legs are lean and long, so it doesn’t matter, because he could just be a kid who was too stupid to consider the ridiculousness of someone being alive that long.

As someone who has been alive for that long - too long - he can attest to the hilarity of it.

He doesn’t like to tell people about it - they shake in their boots, gawk in sympathy, questions tumbling from stuttering mouth. They tremble with an honesty that makes his stomach roil.

After three years of living in the same neighbourhood and never aging a day, his cashier at the grocery store finally asked just how old he was. Their eyes had been bright and honest and when he shrugged out, “Hundred-and-twelve on the twenty-third,” they had simply nodded, smiling before continuing to scan his groceries (grass-fed beef and chicken patties, wild salmon patties, smoked salmon, old cheddar cheese, whole-grain burger buns, and organic vegetables. Four chocolate bars are tossed into the basket as an afterthought).

A bump sits in his throat and a cracking smile, a cracking voice squat on his face. “It’s uh, Jughead - Jughead Jones. I’m Jughead Jones, uh.”

"Val.” He remembers dry, warm hands, crusted nails with swollen knuckles, a pretty smile.  
He left with a blush high in his cheeks.

  
  
“That'll be eighty-nine seventy-six - cash?”

He hands the cashier (young, with huge, curly black hair, big, gorgeous green eyes and a wide, red smile) three twenty dollar bills and three ten dollar bills. They return two dimes and a nickel. He slips them into his pocket, turning them over between his fingers.  
He takes the handleless brown bags from their waiting arms, quirking the corner of his mouth up when they say, “Could be today, Jughead.”

“My sides are split with laughter, Val.”

“What, you haven't heard that one before?”

Rolling his eyes, he smiles at them. Round, pointed fingernails painted a soft mossy green are ticking against the counter as their eyes flick from his mouth to his nose to his cheekbones, unused to the upturned mouth.

Shifting the weight of the grocery bags to his hip, cradling his hand beneath it like a child, he says, “How old did you think I was? When we met? Because I’m thinking I don’t look a day over eighteen.”

They laugh, wrinkling their nose. “Honestly? I thought you were a seventies kid, just because of your inane love for The Breakfast Club.”

“Who doesn't love The Breakfast Club?”

They snort, smiling at the young woman standing at the cash, holding her basket with a patient little crook to her eyebrows. “Touché, Jughead,” Val says, staring to take the groceries from the woman.

She turns to him, all big blue eyes and classic, girl-next-door blonde hair and says, “Dr. Jones?” with a startled lilt to her voice.

He scans over her face and squints, cocking his head to one side and leaning his hip against the counter. “The only reason I got my PhD was so I could pretend to be Indiana, you know,” He half-whispers to Val, loud enough for the girl to hear. He flashes her a wink and thumbs his nose and when she laughs lightly under her breath, he gives Val a smug grin.

Val rolls their eyes, giving the blonde a look like _can you believe it?_ before continuing to scan her items. “No, but I’m not at all surprised.” Val’s voice is dry, and warm. They pause in their scanning to tug at the short denim skirt around their hips. As they pull on the shoulders of their sweater to send it careening down one arm, he notices that the green of the nail polish and the green of the shirt match exactly. He wonders if they did it intentionally.

“I’m - uh - I’m Betty Cooper, you probably don’t know who I am--” The blonde says, pulling at the sleeves of her blue button-down.

“You’re Betty Cooper,” He points out, smiling. “You’re in my Three-Fifteen: Creative Writing class, right?”

“And Four-Oh-Seven: Screenwriting, and Four-Oh-Eight Y: Writing for Graphic Forms, and Four-Eleven: Journalism Studies,” She adds, taking the offered pin pad from Val.

Jughead whistles between his teeth, shifting round glasses further up his nose. “Holy shit - how are you not dead yet?”

Betty shrugs with a shy little smile, taking the offered pinpad from Val, who casts a surprised look between the two of them.

"How come I didn’t know you were a professor, Jug?” They ask, raising their eyebrows. “You keeping secrets from me?”

He shrugs, shifting the groceries to his other hip. “Not my fault that you’re not truly invested in our friendship, Val.”

“Well, you're not wrong - now get out of my shop, you loiter-rer.”

"I’m fairly certain that that’s not a word, Val,” He protests, walking backwards and grinning at the mess of huge hair and high heels and long legs behind the counter.

"I don’t give a shit, Dr. Jones!”  
The door tings as he leaves, holding it open for the blonde woman on his tail, falling into step next to her as she heads down the sidewalk. Her mouth folds open and shut a few times, before he says, “I know you want to ask, Betty, go ahead. I’m relatively impervious,” and it flutters close.

She blushes, pink spilling over her nose and cheeks. She chews on her nails, chipping the white polish between her teeth, not meeting his eyes. “How long have you…?”

"A hundred-and-fourteen years,” He answers, stopping when she does, one eyebrow raised. They’re below the awning of his favourite coffee shop, rain pattering just outside. He’ll have to catch a cab home.

"Aren’t you lonely?” She asks, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. Her nose is pink with the bite in the air, with the bite on the wind that comes with the smell of threatening rain.

She’s not the first person to ask, and he doubts she’ll be the last, but she asks with a curious twist on her words that he’s not used to hearing - almost like she wants to know, but doesn’t care about the answer. He thumbs his nose as his eyes flick over her face.

Living for a hundred years draws attention - to his mannerisms, to his ideologies, to his traditions. It brings questions about his perspective on different issues - on gay rights, on civil rights, on women’s rights - usually from bigoted students who want an intelligent person to agree with their ideas. To them, he should be caught in the same mud that their grandparents have sunk into, the mud of oppression and racism and homophobia and religious justification for hate and fear, and when they find out he isn’t, they reel.

They reel when he tells them he fought in the Great War, and that he owes his life to the strongest people out there: the nurses; he tells them that he stood next to the same women when they refused to let the law shame them into believing that they weren’t ‘persons’; he tells them he fought in the Second World War and that his biggest regret is allowing himself to throw someone’s grandfather in a labour camp and beat him bloody after the Pearl Harbor bombings on December seventh, nineteen-forty-one; he tells them that on August twenty-eighth, nineteen-sixty-three, he knelt in the crowd of some two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people and listened to MLK shout the words _I have a dream!_

When he used to tell his students, he would answer their questions, until the day a student asked him  
_how do you know you didn’t kill your soulmate? Like in Germany or Russia or France or Korea or Vietnam? How do you know you won’t kill them in the wars you fight in future years?_

 _I don’t,_ He’d answered, voice shaking, hands trembling. _I guess I’ll live to fight a few more wars if that’s the case, won’t I?_

After that, he never told another class.

His parents weren’t soulmates, and they both died looking the same age as him, looking like children, despite their decades of life. His father had died in a bombing in the First World War, his mother in a gas attack in the Second, his sister by her side.

He often wondered who his dad’s real soulmate was, if maybe they could have kept him away from the horror he became after years of fighting, years of drinking, years of drugs.

"I don’t know if I’ve ever not been lonely, Betty,” He says with a sharp smile that makes her frown, pulling on her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth.

“Do you have a roommate?” She asks, her jaw tight, her shoulders falling back, her spine lengthening up up up.

He squints, slightly wary. “Unless the mold growing in the corner of my bathroom counts as a living creature, no.”

She cocks her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re tenured at Columbia University?”

"Yes.” He frowns at her.

"And you have an army pension?”

“Yeah.”

“And you live in an apartment with mold in the bathroom.”

“Definitely.”

She grins at him, and he feels the blood leave his face. “Not anymore you don’t.”

 

Three weeks later and Jughead has a house.  
Well, it isn’t a house, because this is Upper East Side Manhattan, and that’s an impossibility, but it is a luxury apartment. It has two moldless bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and two bedrooms, one of which he knows he’ll never be able to fill. It brings an ache to his gut that he tries to ignore.

With a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Bailey’s, sitting on his genuine black-and-white tile kitchen floor, their backs to clean white cabinets, and stomachs and ribs aching from laughter, Val, Betty, and Jughead christen his new home.

It happens on a Friday night, and leaves him with a throbbing, begging headache that he may or may not recover from in time to teach on Monday.

The next day, at eleven clock, he stumbles off a mattress that swims in the master bedroom, heart in his throat and his head sore and fuzzy when someone slams on his doorbell.

"Jughead!” Betty greets, pushing past him, tsking at the packed state of his kitchen.

He winces at her voice. “Betty, how did you--?”

He covers his face with his hands, because it’s bright and his head is pounding, but he spreads his fingers when he catches the whiff of fried goodness emanating from a bag in her hand. He grins at her. “God knows how you’ve lived for so long on so much grease, Jughead Jones,” She sniffs, passing him a plate that he waves away, digging into the burger with a lazy grin. He pops himself onto the counter, the plate in this lap, cracking his knuckles to watch her wince and shudder.

"God knows how I’ve ever survived a hangover in my long hundred years without you, Betty Cooper.”

His burger at his mouth, he tracks his eyes over his unfamiliar kitchen, taking in the subway tile and the white stone counters and the big window and it’s then that he notices the redheaded boy sitting across from him, chugging back a Gatorade. “Who the fuck--?”

The boy puts the Gatorade down, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, giving Jughead a lazy smile, running his fingers through wild, sweat-matted hair. He pulls on the front of his black tank-top and fans it out, a flush riding high in his cheekbones and neck, dyeing the tips of his ears and fingers. Jughead’s eyes flicker across the muscles in his forearms, across broad shoulders and hollow collarbones, over a pink mouth and a scar between eyebrows and big brown eyes, chewing on his lower lip, downing half his coffee in one go in a futile attempt to distract himself.

"Jughead – Archie, Archie – Jughead,” Betty says, flipping through a newspaper she must have brought with her. “Between the two of you, you’ll be able to play the rent on this place no problem. Anyways—” She pushes herself away from the counter, pressing a kiss to Jughead’s cheek and wrinkling her nose at Archie. “I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

Her converse skid across the hardwood floor, and the door thuds shut behind her.

Jughead stares down the hallway, mouth drifting open, before it tilts in a smirk. It's been a long time since someone has managed to shock him so spectacularly, twisting his guts into a knot that leaves his eyes wide and jaw unhinged.

When he looks up, and Archie is staring at him, his eyes trailing from his eyes to his mouth to his collarbones and shoulders, darting to the empty plate in front of him, looking vaguely impressed.

“So,” He says loudly, watching Archie’s eyes flick to his in alarm, a blush flaring over his cheeks.

"Uh,” Archie says, his cheeks flushed, “So… you’re - uh, you’re Jughead?”

"The one and only.” His tone is edged with enough barbs to make the other boy lean forward, his forearms and biceps flexing, tucking his chin up, raising his eyebrows, the curve of his mouth angling upwards.

“Betty set us up, huh?”

“Looks like,” Jughead says casually, putting his plate in the sink and standing in front of the redhead, hands on his hips, trailing his eyes over his form.

“I play guitar, sing in the shower, and get up early to go for runs. Just so you know my possible failings as a roommate,” Archie says, holding Jughead’s eyes as he slips off the counter, leaning against it, the other boy only a few inches from him.

“I play the drums, I correct papers at obscene hours and I… I have nightmares. So, uh, that could be a possible failing.” The words fall from his tongue like lead pipes, and he freezes. He can’t remember the last time he told someone about the shapes that twist his sleep.

Archie’s eyes soften, stepping forward, into Jughead’s space, staring up at him. “So do I. PTSD?”

Jughead nods. His eyebrows course in a frown, and he crosses his arms against the vulnerability that sings in his bones and gut and toes. “You a vet?”

Archie laughs, skimming his hand up Jughead’s arm. “No, it was - uh, something else.”

"I have a hundred years of symptoms of wars I wish I hadn’t fought in,” He murmurs, leaning into the touch, letting his hand cup Archie’s jaw and tug him a little closer. He doesn’t know why this is so easy, or why this doesn’t make him recoil, retract, run. As Archie’s arms come around his waist, and he curves his around broad shoulders, tucking his face into a neck that smells like raspberry body wash, like sweat and men’s deodorant, he lets himself consider the possibility that this kid is his soulmate, that this boy is the person he could finally, finally grow old with.

A sob shudders over the bare skin of his shoulder, and he realizes with a jolt that he’s not wearing a shirt, just low slung grey sweat-pants and red boxers that sit high enough on his hips that he knows Archie can see them. He sighs and pulls him closer.

"I swear I’m usually more clothed than this,” He murmurs, drawing his nose along the line of his neck, up his jaw and over his cheek, startling himself with the intimacy.

Against his chest, Jughead feels him hum. “I - I can’t say I mind.” He tenses against him, and the redhead draws away, turning to face the wide window at the other end of the galley kitchen, head bowed, arms crossed. “Sorry,” He murmurs, reaching up to drag one hand through his hair. “I - uh--”

Jughead reaches out a hand, putting it between Archie’s shoulder blades, feeling the muscles flex as he straightens, dragging it down the valley of his spine, over to fit into the dip of his waist. He moves like liquid, trying not to scare him away, pressing closer, pressing his front to Archie’s back, slipping his lips across the back of his neck. He drops his chin onto his shoulder, then his mouth. “It’s been years since I--”

“Me too.”

“Why is it so easy with you?”

“You calling me easy, Jughead?”

He smiles, and mouths over a stray freckle part-way down his neck. “Never.”

Archie turns around in his arms, staring at him, taking in the blue grey eyes and pink mouth, the heavy purple bruises that swells his lower eyelids. There’s a bump on the bridge of his nose where he’s broken it before, and Archie wonders which war decided to go for his face; seven scars sit, pink and puckered, on his left shoulder, his chest and his stomach; there are raised bumps and scars and bloats. His collarbones are caves.

“I was a soldier and an army doctor for years,” Jughead murmurs, face free of blush. He can’t bring embarrassment to mind, because his body has always been the one thing that he has had total and complete faith in. It didn’t give out when his dad beat him bloody, when he was shot and stabbed, when he sobbed his way through physical therapy, when he watched children die in chemical attacks, when he held back wailing parents who tried to run for burning buildings. It didn’t give out the first time he had sex with a woman, with a man, it didn’t give out all the times he climbed a tree with a sister, or the first time he wished he hurt himself to try and hide. It lasted his first tattoo, his first piercing. He can’t bring himself to be ashamed of his body, especially not in front of someone like Archie.

He holds earth-after-rain eyes with his own, and smiles lightly when his fingers come up to trail over the whirling spiral of black and grey roses and thorns that curve across his ribs. The blue and pink and purple swallow that flits from one collarbone to the other, leaving a trail of watercolours in his wake attract the calloused fingers next, digging into the skin. A quill and inkpot sit on his heart, leaving spots of black behind as it writes for whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Archie doesn’t recognize the poem, but it must belong to someone important, because when he brings his palm up to lie overtop of it, Jughead shivers and pushes into the touch, his eyes falling closed.

Pulling away, he reaches to the back of his tank-top, pulling it up and over his head, dropping it onto the counter behind him.

Jughead’s eyes skim over the mess of massing tattoos that cover his stomach and ribs, looping around his forearm; they are sprawling leaves and letters he can’t make out, all done in black ink, delicate work, geometric patterns, an antler, a bee, a broken guitar. The ambiguity brings his hands to the warm skin. The bullet holes in his shoulder, in his chest are covered with cold fingers, like trying to stop the blood falling out of a healed wound.

He flicks his eyes to Archie’s. “I thought you weren’t a veteran.”

"I’m not,” Archie murmurs, skimming his fingers to dig into his hips, pull him a little closer. “I’m a cop in the NYPD.”

“Good to know I’m not the only person in the house who knows how to fire a gun,” Jughead says, putting his arms on Archie’s shoulders and tossing his fingers through the soft hair, working through the knots that sweat leaves behind.

“Sounds like a euphemism,” Archie teases.

Jughead clucks his tongue and swats his arm lazily. “You’ll have to stick around and find out.”

Archie hums, letting his forehead drop onto his collarbone. “Thank God for Betty Cooper.”

Jughead laughs, kissing his ear, trying to ignore the thrum in his fingertips that tells him he’ll regret ever doing this, because everyone else has left, and what could possibly be telling you that this beautiful boy isn’t next? He indulges. He wonders when Archie will meet his soulmate and age away without him. A thought, selfish and cold, flies across his mind and he pulls him closer, making a tiny noise as he roots into the side of his neck, coils his arms around his waist.

_If I couldn’t grow old with you, would you stay young with me?_

"How do you know her?” Jughead asks as he pulls away, feeling a blush creep onto his cheeks.

Archie looks surprised, and for a moment his hands flounder. “Oh, uh, well, her girlfriend, Veronica, is the Assistant District Attorney, and I’m NYPD, so.”

Frowning, Jughead says, “I didn’t think officers had a lot of interaction with the ADAs.”

“They don’t - but Police Commissioners do.”

Jughead’s mouth drops open, trailing over Archie’s arms and shoulders and waist. His build comes from years of physical labour, from the muscles being continuously ripped and healed and ripped and healed, adding layer to layer of the fascial tissue. This isn't the body of amman who sits behind a desk.

“You’re the Police Commissioner for the NYPD?”

Archie’s cheeks flare, and he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “Uh, yeah?”

"The NY.. Holy shit,” Jughead says. “How old--?”

"Sixty-seven, give or take a couple of years.”

Jughead snorts. “You’re still fucking jailbait compared to me.”

Archie grins at him, wrapping one hand around his wrist and pulling their bodies flush. “Technically, you’d be the one fucking jailbait,” He quips, just to watch Jughead blush, “And you don’t look a day over ninety, honey - at least, not yet.”

Dark hair and a pink mouth freeze mid laugh, and storm cloud eyes dart up to his, breathing falling quickly. Hair like fire and a mouth like a bleeding wound ache with worry, eyes wide, flickering away, because that’s not the kind of thing you assume, or make light of, even if Jughead with lines around his eyes and mouth, grey in his hair and a child hand in his own is the only thing he’s been able to think about. He shouldn’t have even considered it, but he can’t help it. It feels as natural as breathing, but the stricken look on Jughead’s face - wide eyes, tight mouth, pale cheeks, hard jaw - tells him that he’s the only one. “I’m so sorry,” He murmurs, pulling away completely, grabbing his shirt off his counter. He backs away, holding his shirt between his hands, because he’s been around for sixty years but this has never been easy. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Oh, my God, Jughead, I’ll - just - I’ll go.”

As he opens the front door, he leans his forehead against it. He wants there to be a sound from the other boy, something to tell him that he’ll be invited back, but silence reigns. His heart sits in his gut and his gut sits in his thighs.

The rain falls on his way home.

 

“Betty?”

“What the fuck did you do, Jughead?”

“Nothing.”

“Jug--”

"As your professor, I shouldn’t be seeing students unless it’s during my regular office hours, or in class, Ms. Cooper. I especially should not be seeing them at my residence.”

“Yes. You’re right. Thank you, Dr. Jones.”

 

“Betty?”

“Look, I know you told me not to--”

“Oh, my God! I - it was my fault, Betty, I don’t need you looking after my business.”

"I know, but you’re… well, you’re a fucking mess.”

"I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Archie--”

 

“B--Ms. Cooper. What are you doing here?”

“I believe you asked me to visit you on your office hours, Dr. Jones. When was the last time you shaved?”

"I don’t have to shave. In a world of being perpetually eighteen, I don’t get--”

"You have stubble, Jughead. It’s gross and you need to shave.”

"But… I can’t--”

"Oh, my God, you complete idiot.”

 

He scuffs his converse on the concrete, scratches at his hair beneath the Whoopee cap on his head. The streets are lined with rotting trees whose leaves are scattered around their trunks. An old man murmurs to himself at the bus stop, picking at his nail beds with dirt-ridden hands.

“You know,” Someone says, and he starts, glancing back towards the old man. A boy with a swirl of red hair sits next to him, wearing an oversized grey sweater over a white thermal, light-wash ripped jeans and black chucks, sitting with his arm sprawled over the back of the bench, knees spread, and a flush riding high in his cheeks. “I didn’t think you’d get so good-looking as you grew up, Jug.”

A grin paints across his face. He pulls on the sweater as he stands, brushing his hair back from his face, rubbing the back of his neck. There’s stubble on his cheeks, the kind teenagers get when they’re still learning how to shave, when they still rub their skin raw because they haven’t discovered the power of aftershave. His shoulders are a little broader and he’s a touch taller, his jawline is sharper and his face is losing the little bits of baby fat he still had.

Jughead can’t move, even as he comes closer, standing in front of him.

Archie’s gaze follows the line of his nose, skidding over his cheeks (he barely needs to shave once a week) and the line of his jaw. He still has to look up at him, and the gap of three inches has become one.

"Archie,” He murmurs, fingers coming up brush against his jaw, before falling away. “I’m--”

"You’re older,” Archie murmurs, his hands coming up to frame his neck. “Who - Did - Was it--”

Jughead raises an eyebrow, tracing his fingers. “You’re so articulate this morning, Arch--”

"Are you older because of me?” He spills, his words arching from his throat and spilling out of his mouth and over his tongue. “Was I your… soulmate?” His voice cracks on the words, and he remembers that he’s growing up, now, and he’s done it alone for a year. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. The whole point was to grow up next to someone else, to adapt and evolve and ebb and flow with the one person who would stand next to you through it all.

“I--” Jughead says, and Archie forces his eyes closed and his body away, turning to look at the old man. “I hope it was you.”  
Archie doesn't fix his eyes onto him. “I hope it is you, Archie, but if it's not, if you're here to tell me it was just a big misunderstanding, I--”

“How could you misunderstand that, Jughead?” He snaps, whirling around, inches away. “I spent every second I saw you thinking about how - how beautiful you would become as you aged, about how good you'd look with a baby in your arms, Jug, you don't misunderstand something like that.” His breath shudders into broken lungs. “You - you're it.”

"You scared me, Archie! God, a hundred years alone on this fucking planet--” His voice breaks. His vision swims with a red headed boy’s mouth and nose, his lips blush with the pressure against them. He brings unsteady hands up to lay on Archie’s waist, digging into the dip. 

Their mouths move over one another easily, smoothly, gently and he hums, pressing closer, wanting deeper and more. He tucks his fingers into belt loops and slots their hips together. “Archie," He murmurs as he pulls away, tilting his head back as he drops kisses against the moles that line his neck.

"Come home with me.”

 

“Paws off the fries, Andrews, I’m gonna break your teeth. These are a religious experience - Betty! For fucks--”

“Ow! Hey, slapping is totally uncalled for.”

“Stay away from my fries, then, why don't you?”

“This cannot be a religious experience for you, Jughead Jones, I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Well, I am dating this asshole - Ow! Yes, you can have a fry for that, fuckinf puppy dog eyes. Pray tell, Ms. Lodge, why can't Pop Tate’s be my holy sanctuary?”

“Because Betty and I fucked in the bathroom.”

 

“I’m asexual.”

"So, you don't… like sex? Right?”

"I, uh, just don't really have - i don't experience like sexual attraction. To anyone. And I know that you--”

"You can't possibly think that - Jughead, I love you, okay? Sex isn't gonna change that.”

"But, what if--?”

“I lasted sixty years without anything but my right hand, you don't think I can keep up that streak?”

 

“Looking good for a hundred and twenty.”

"Will there be a day when that isn't your favourite joke? Please, let me know so I can fast-forward to it to escape your sense of humour.”

"Wow, I feel loved, honey.”

“The pet names better stop.”

“Sweetie? Sweetheart? Gumdrop? Turnip?”

“Turnip? What the fuck-- Ah! Archie, you dick! No, put me down! Stop - Stop tickling me, I swear to God. Ah! Archie!”

 

“Marriage is overrated and unnecessary! It's conservatives wanting to reduce the size of the government just so it's big enough to fit inside our bedrooms! It's ridiculous, it's cruel, and I’m sticking it to the man, Archie--”

“Okay, never say sticking it to the man again, what are you? And… I wasn't asking as a hypothetical.”

"What?”

“I wasn't asking as a hypothetical.”

“No, I - Wait, what?”

“Dear God, I’m never gonna ask you to marry me again.”

 

“Arch, I gotta talk to you--”

“Sure thing, just lemme finish up with dinner, a’right? I know you always mock my Mexican food but it's--”

“They said no, Archie.”

“What?”

“The… fuck, the adoption agency said ‘no,’ Arch.”

“C’mere, Jug.”

 

 

“I love you.”

“Well, it's been ninety-three years of putting up with your shit, Arch, you either love me or you're crazy.”

“My money’s on crazy, let's be real.

… Jug? Oh, God, baby. Fuck, Jug--”

“Dad? Is he…?”

“Pop? Pop, are you okay? Why are you crying? What's wrong with Grampa, Pop?”

 

“We’re not playing Highway to Hell!

"Yes, we are. I’m ninety-five years old and I’m gonna die in a couple years, and we’re playing this song at my husband’s funeral.”

“Dad.”

“Grandpa, it's really not--”

“Short of jumping out of the coffin and shouting surprise, this is exactly what he would've wanted, Forsythias." 

“Yes, dad.” “Sure, Grampa.”

**Author's Note:**

> F U C K M E  
> it's two am  
> i finally finished this fic
> 
> anyways, i hope y'all enjoyed, please lemme know somewhere about what you thought  
> you can hmu on tumblr @blue-by-auster for comments/rants/chats/prompts/concerns 
> 
> also, y'all should definitely check out angeburger (@pinksugarheattattack) and isummondemonsinyourcloset (@nose-coffee) and lyxxie because they are all amazing and talented writers and i love them dearly 
> 
> have a great day lovelies!
> 
> xx  
> mads

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [this moment has waited it's whole life for you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598667) by [ShyAudacity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity)




End file.
